BAGHDAD -- Skirmishes broke out Tuesday between Iraqi security forces and militants on the outskirts of Tikrit, a local official and a resident said, a day after Iraqi and Kurdish troops backed by U.S. airstrikes dislodged Islamic militants from a strategic dam in the country's north.
Also Tuesday, two U.S. officials said they believe that American journalist James Foley was the victim executed by Islamic State militants as shown in a grisly video released Tuesday.
The clashes in Tikrit, some 80 miles north of Baghdad, began on the militant-held city's southwestern outskirts when a convoy was traveling along the main highway that links Baghdad with the northern provinces, the official and resident said. The Iraqi military shelled militant positions inside and outside the city.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. The official and resident spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for their safety.
Sunni extremists from the Islamic State extremist group have occupied Tikrit and the northern city of Mosul since early June, as well as large parts of the country's north and west. The militant onslaught has plunged Iraq into its worst crisis since the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011.
The group since has declared a self-ruled state in territory it controls in Iraq and neighboring Syria, imposing its own harsh interpretation of Islamic law.
The Iraqi military began an operation in late June to try to wrest back control of Tikrit from the Islamic State, but that quickly stalled after making little headway. Sporadic clashes have been reported around the city and surrounding areas since then, but efforts by Iraqi government forces and allied Sunni tribal militiamen have failed to push out the militants.
An Iraqi army spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, said Tuesday that a "slow and gradual" push to retake areas around Tikrit is underway and that security forces dismantled more than 40 bombs in the area.
On Monday, Iraqi and Kurdish forces recaptured the Mosul Dam in northern Iraq less than two weeks after it was seized by the militants. The dam is the largest in Iraq and a vital power and water resource for the country.
The gains made by the Islamic State militants drew U.S. forces back into the conflict for the first time since they withdrew in 2011. Washington began carrying out dozens of airstrikes on Aug. 8.
Hours after retaking the dam, U.S. President Barack Obama called the development a "major step forward" in the fight against the group.
Also Tuesday, the Islamic State posted a video on YouTube that it said showed the beheading of Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped in Syria nearly two years ago, according to a transcript released by the SITE Intelligence Group.
"I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers -- the U.S. government -- for what will happen to me is only a result of their complacent criminality," Foley says before being beheaded in the video, which was uploaded to the online account of the al-Furqan Media Foundation, according to SITE, which follows jihadist groups.
The video concludes with a fighter threatening to kill Steven Sotloff, another American who was being held alongside Foley. "The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision," the masked man says, according to the transcript.
YouTube later took down the four-minute, 40-second video.
The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the video, said they believed it to be authentic.
In an online statement, Foley's mother, Diane Foley, said the journalist "gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people."
One of the U.S. officials said Obama was expected to make a statement about the killing today.
The United Nations refugee agency, meanwhile, said it is beginning one of its largest aid pushes aimed at helping close to 500,000 people who have been forced to flee their homes by the violence in Iraq.
Some 1.5 million people have been displaced by fighting in Iraq since the Islamic State's rapid advance began in June, and thousands more have died. The scale of the humanitarian crisis prompted the United Nations to declare its highest level of emergency last week.
Information for this article was contributed by Sinan Salaheddin, Lara Jakes and Bram Janssen of The Associated Press and by Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times.
A Section on 08/20/2014
265328288